Exploring alternatives to constantly buying new crap

Happy Halloween folks! I didn’t do any decorating, but apparently a spider around my house celebrates the holiday and spun up this beauty by the back door for me to marvel at yesterday. They’ve never built a web there before, so I know it’s the Halloween spirit.

large web but no spider in sight…

I haven’t gotten any candy to give out this year. I just couldn’t stand the thought of handing out individually-wrapped, tooth-decaying sugar bombs to little children, so I’m likely going to keep the lights off and pretend I’m not home. Does this make me a horrible person? Maybe. I’ve got to figure out something for next year.

On the bright side, I made a tiny harvest from my garden for the first time in weeks. The jalapeño first appeared a few weeks ago as I was doing some weeding and was shocked to realize the jalapeño plant that I had taken for dead was actually alive and produced this bite-sized offering. Most of my Mississippi Silver cowpea plants now have pods on them, so I picked a few to sample. I never had southern peas before and was pleased that after boiling them they didn’t taste excessively bean-y. They were probably a bit immature still as they’re a crowder variety and didn’t look all that crowded in the pod yet. I’m hoping that when they mature a bit more they’re also easier to shell, yeesh!